Transformation of Romania’s Defence Policy

• Defense and security policies are inherently confronted with finding the suitable balance between international and internal developments, such that both dimensions match and reinforce each other. No commitments can be sustained without an internal substance of military transformation and no defense reform could be pursued without a look to what defense stands for in the new global environment.
• NATO enlargement play as an important role in transforming Romania’s defense policy from a territorial-centric approach to a wider strategic view about our Armed Forces missions and tasks. There are two dimensions of this enlargement of perspectives that I would like to brief you about: first, the political and strategic parameters related to Romania’s military role and second, the “indoors” reform of the armed forces.
• To understand how policies have shifted to a dramatically new type of approach, I will also refer to the previous plans and strategies and their limitations.
• In the first parameter, we ought to admit that Romania’s defense strategies as a NATO partner were mostly concentrated on a South-Easterner or, the most, a Eurocentric view about security. Back in the 90s, priorities were related to stabilization in the Balkans, configuration of a regional profile for our armed forces on one side and preparation for accession to NATO and use of the assistance received from Allies, on the other. Now, not only the idea of regions and “regionality” and the one we had about military reform have changed, but also our own plans and objectives.
• Let me give you some examples. Few countries can profess a global strategic role. A certain number can advance regional ambitions and the great majority, local interest. However, when you are confronted with asymmetric threats, from terrorism and proliferation to criminality and illegal trafficking, the political borders of your strategies take a different shape. You cannot be regional stricto sensu, but you need to extend your approach to a broader definition about your security and defense objectives.
• This is why we went to Afghanistan and this is why we are now in Iraq. This is why regional defense policies are currently defined in a wider approach to South Eastern Europe, Black Sea area, Caucasus and Middle East.
• Of course no one should infer that we have changed our long term security interests but we have redefined the means to pursue them. While being the main beneficiary of its own region’s security, one is also accountable for it, therefore we will continue to regard South Eastern Europe as one of the main regions of interest and strategic responsibility, in the spirit of the principle of regional ownership.
• Moreover, as a NATO member and a candidate to EU, we will be involved in a number of allied policies particularly different in shape and substance. We cannot be anymore only a beneficiary of assistance, we have to define our own means of assisting partners in advancing their reform and improving domestic stability. This goes for both reconstruction and state-building endeavors such as the ones in Afghanistan and Iraq, and also for sound bilateral relations with NATO partners and candidates to partnership, from Serbia and Montenegro and Bosnia to the East, in Caucasus. I believe we possess an interesting experience in areas such as defense planning, civil-military relations, forces’ interoperability or human resources that we are already sharing with other militaries and that, correspondingly, we can play a relevant role as sponsor or supporter of other partners and candidates to NATO.
• In defense diplomacy terms, we can contribute by this to promoting the Alliance principles, values and policies outside the “juridical” NATO borders, the same way NATO members have done it in our case.
• Another conceptual transformation with strategic implications. We all know that NATO has now a global dimension profoundly changed in terms of type of missions and tasks it will undertake. Romanian armed forces should be prepared to participate to the whole range of NATO operations, including high intensity combat ones. Between classical theoretical definitions of war and peace, we have now to accommodate not only the out-of-area facet of the new Alliance, but also a larger spectrum of missions than standard peacekeeping. There are of course major political implications of doing counter terrorism and state building in Afghanistan, where Romanian soldiers have been involved since the very beginning. There are also important consequences of connecting our air space surveillance and policing to NATINEADS.
• Correspondingly, our defense policy is currently based on a number of completely new requirements those significance is still to be ingested within the military establishment. In the spring of this year, we have issued a Ministerial Guidance incorporating a detailed range of new missions and military tasks for our Armed Forces that will form the basis for their strategic review.
• Going to the second parameter, related to changes in Romania’s armed forces’ structure, I do feel the need of sharing with you a distinction in terms that is actually a distinction in concepts and processes. Why am I speaking about transformation of defense and not about the mere, old terminology of reform and restructuring? Because transformation is basically a far-reaching reform that never ends. This accounts for a shift in leadership’s mentalities: you are reforming something that is obsolete and should be changed, once improved, your business being done; but you are continuously transforming something that is not necessarily bad, but remains deficient and unresponsive to exterior challenges and changes.
• The concept of NATO transformation was born in NATO capitals and will, of course, be developed from there. Quite interesting, I believe that we are experiencing a two-sided transformation: the one in member states’ armed forces has created the opening for the Alliance internal adaptation, while NATO adaptation itself has now went beyond first expectations, taking in some respects the lead and pushing for more profound changes in capitals. For the first time this summer, we have been a part and we have had a voice in Ministerial meetings, committees and working groups.
• Matching our domestic reform to NATO enlargement means to assess our insertion into a collective system of security building and force planning and accordingly to integrate the rules of a long-lasting security community into national defense policy patterns. There are as I have mentioned brand new responsibilities and new capabilities that we have to build.
• The new approach to military reform shifts the focus from traditional territorial defense to internationally committed rapid reaction capabilities and collective engagements. By the end of this year, roughly 2,200 Romanian military will be deployed in international stabilization missions in different geographic regions and different complex theatres of operations, like Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans.
• These forces account for the substance of defense reform and its fundamental objective of creating a military lighter, more agile, more flexible and more effective in participating to the Euro-Atlantic efforts of countering the new security threats. Thus, the military contribution to NATO will form the basis for further defining Romania’s strategic profile as a new Ally.
• We are committed to work together with the other members of the Alliance on the new topics the full membership status will bring in seeking an improved sustainability, deploy ability, mobility, and survivability in terms of military capabilities; professional involvement, and commitment to defending and exporting peace and security in terms of political principles and values. The rationale behind our Armed Forces’ reform is double: to maximize our contribution to NATO and to develop a professional and cost-effective military
• Military reform is a function of many factors, including the level of interoperability, the quality and quantity of professional soldiers and civilians, the level of their training, readiness and equipment and, ultimately, their actual ability to fulfill assigned missions and tasks. The transformation that we envision in Romania goes beyond operational concepts, force structures and human resources. It is also about a state of mind. It is therefore necessary to clearly determine what role you want your military to play, how much are you able to invest in it and what relation you want to have between the military, the society and the state.
• Our new Constitution has offered the necessary flexibility for a new type of thinking about the armed forces, eliminating the provisions related to the compulsory character of conscription.
• A new force structure review is aimed to match the new missions of the armed forces and will further define the actions that need to be taken to make our forces fully compatible with NATO. Expeditionary out-of-area roles of the armed forces require professional people to do increasingly specialized tasks. Thus, full professionalization of the military is envisaged by 2007 and structural changes will be undertaken in order to reduce the in-place long-term built up forces and concentrate on a gradual increase of capabilities available for NATO missions.
• Last week’s discussions with NATO teams on Romania’s Force Proposals have yielded further adjustments in our defense plans in order to be able to substantially contribute to the new missions the Alliance has assumed within its own process of adaptation and transformation. As an example, we have drafted a consistent package of forces up to 2012, both at the level of high and low readiness. We are also analyzing existing assets for participation in Prague Capabilities Commitment and in the NATO Response Force.